Applied Demography & Health

Catalog description

This course provides an overview of data, methods, and techniques in applied demography used to help address public health questions. This course provides a wide-ranging coverage of substantive health questions that draw upon data and analytical methods closely associated with applied demography. The course opens with an overview of the substantive connections between health and applied demography. The remainder of the course is divided up into three main parts: (1) Local/Regional Health Assessments; (2) Methods and Case Studies in Morbidity and Mortality; and (3) Emergent Trends in Applied Demography and Health. Part 1 focuses on data needs and commonly used methods (and their limitations) related to local/regional community health assessments - including diverse contexts (rural-urban, developed and developing countries). These data and methods are utilized to examine health disparities, health service planning (based on catchment area analysis and location-allocation modeling as well as methods for measuring accessibility and utilization of health services), environmental pollution, and emergency/disaster response. Part 2 covers the connections between demographics and the epidemiological transition. This section includes a broad focus on a specific classification of human health and disease (i.e., provisioning care and disease prevention, communicable disease, non-communicable disease, and accidents and other causes of injury and death). Across each classification of health and disease the heterogeneity of data needs, time scales, spatial scales, and population at risk is wide. Applications of methods and use of case studies will facilitate the discussion of these different kinds of contemporary health challenges. Part 3 focuses briefly on the future, including an examination of global health questions (broad processes and forecasts associated with migration, urbanization, and environmental change) and new types of data and methods (including challenges and opportunities) that applied demographers will likely use in the next decade. This course covers a diverse set of topics related to human health. Some of the most important health problems of the early 21st Century (in the U.S. and globally) relate to health inequalities in access to resources (e.g., access/use of health services) and in the variation in individual exposure to risks (e.g., environmental pollution, neighborhood deprivation, obesogenic environments, and crime), and how both access to resources and exposure to risk are associated with health disparities across populations (by race, socioeconomic status, gender, age, and other forms of social stratification). This course will provide students with an understanding of key health topics, and specific data and analytical tools that can be used to address them.